Watch out

13122010

I did it again. You would think after washing my iPod shuffle that I would learn. Apparently not. This weekend I washed my leather watch. My lovely leather watch, that fits my in-ordinarily skinny wrists. I was on skype to my dad when I heard the chink-chink-chink of a stray “coin” in the washing machine. NOOOooooooooooooooo. Then I saw it – a flash of leather, a glint of silver – and there was NOTHING I could do – it had not even got through the rinse cycle. Needless to say any conversation I was having with my Dad was over – I just kept moaning about my watch. I even tried to kill time (no pun intended) trying in vain to find the same model on the net. It was so bad that I poured myself a large glass of red (I have been T-total for about 6 weeks). Then we waited. Me in the UK, my dad in Angola (via skype), and my mom (via WhatsApp in South Africa). I nearly texted my sister who seems to be good at praying for miracles – but then the beep sounded and I dashed to fish out the watch from amongst the socks and tights entangling it. I retrieved it and it ticked!! It was 20 mins out but ticking. I showed it to my dad – elated – and then…code blue. The ticking ceased. “Get the battery out” was his advice (he is like McGuiver and fixer of all things) so I set off on a mission to remove the battery. I swiveled round the laptop so he could see me performing the operation with a weird mini fork thing I found in the drawer. I am sure it made for entertaining viewing on his part. I did manage to take the back off (only drawing a bit of blood as I pierced my fingers). The battery was extracted and the watch carcass was set to dry overnight on a radiator. Another appliance hung out to dry.

(You will be glad to know however that it survived with a little help from a kind man in the jewelery shop, who despite shaking his head ruefully at my foolish behaviour, managed to pop in a new battery and restore my watch to full working order! It’s time had not yet come)